👟 Four Claim Individual Conference Titles at 2024 Indoor Big 12 Championships
LUBBOCK, Texas – The Kansas Track and Field team tallied four first-place finishes and broke five total school records at the 2024 Indoor Big 12 Championship.
The men finished fourth with 81 total points, while the women rounded things out in sixth place with 41 total points, improving on their seventh-place finish from last season’s Big 12 Indoor Championships.
Grant Lockwood (600y, 1:07.79), Michael Joseph (400m, 45.46) and Devin Loudermilk (high jump, 2.26m) were all school record breakers and individual Big 12 Champions, while Clayton Simms finished first in the men’s pole vault to claim his first career Big 12 title.
Lockwood ran 1:07.81 in prelims to break the previous school record of 1:08.06, which was ran by Strymar Livingston at the 2016 Big 12 Indoor Championships. He took first overall, then turned around and did the same thing, shaving .2 seconds off his record from the day prior.
Joseph followed suit by breaking his own school record from last year’s Big 12 Championships, running a season and personal best of 45.46 to claim his first-career Big 12 title.
Loudermilk was tied for first in the Big 12 heading into this weekend’s meet and smashed his personal best of 2.21m by clearing 2.23m and 2.26m with ease. He then took three good attempts at 2.29m but ended up winning it all at 2.26m. In doing so, Loudermilk surpassed a record that was set back in 1982 by Tyke Peacock (2.24m).
Simms led the men’s pole vault squad that secured four of the eight podium spots at this year’s championship, winning with a best clearance of 5.68m. Anthony Meacham was the next-highest scorer in the events, jumping a new personal best of 5.43m to finish third. Ashton Barkdull was right behind him with a fourth-place finish at the same mark. Luke Knipe took sixth with his new personal best mark of 5.23m.
Emmaculate Jemutai was another school record-breaker, surpassing her own record in the mile with a new-personal best of 4:39.27 to secure fourth place in her first Big 12 Championship.
Mason Meinershagen had a weekend full of personal bests, clearing 4.45m to take the runner-up title in the women’s pole vault. She then competed in the high jump the following day, getting on the podium with a fifth-place jump of 1.76m, her new personal best.
Gabby Hoke joined Meinershagen on the women’s pole vault podium in fifth with a 4.30m clearance, which is a new personal best for the senior.
Alexander Jung represented the Jayhawks well in the heptathlon, finishing third with a season-best total of 5611 points.
Other noteworthy performances came from the men’s and women’s 4x400m relay squads, finishing third and fifth respectively to score solid points for both sides.
Tori Thomas also finished in the top-five, throwing a best of 16.29m to secure fifth in the women’s shot put.
Up next, the Jayhawks will await their fate for the NCAA Indoor National Championship, which is being held in Boston on March 6-10. So far, there are three athletes solidified to represent Kansas in Simms (No. 3), Loudermilk (No. 5) and Meinershagen (No. 9).
